Networking 101: The 5 Drivers to Finding a Job (You Love)

The market is teaming after COVID. There is a constant flow of talent graduating from university, moving across firms, and changing sectors. And yet, it feels hard to really find the right job - where your team, salary, impact, and work align with your goals. There seem to be five core drivers of finding a job, one you love, that we can all benefit from applying more deeply:

1. Reflect on your "why"
2. Find People (the “right” ones)
3. Conduct Informational interviews
4. Leverage your current environment
5. Fail first

There are libraries full of information about job searching, and at least 100 best-selling books, which I am not trying to rewrite. But, I was rejected from 11 of 14 undergraduate university programs, 114 of 116 companies I applied to, and 7 of 9 final round interviews... and I am not ashamed to admit that. I now work for managers on both the client and consulting side that are leading transformative technology and analytics practices in transport. More importantly, I am fortunate to genuinely love this space and my colleagues. There is plenty of luck at play, but also a few key themes I hope work for you in the process. As an aside, I wish people spent more time talking about their failures and what they learnt from it, in addition to celebrating their successes.

The target audience here is folks younger to the working world, especially coming out of school, but could apply to anyone newer to networking. The best time to start networking is far ahead of when you are actually looking to make a job change: there is less pressure, it feels more organic, and you have greater room for exploration.

Before jumping in, a quick anecdote about the power of intentional networking: As a second semester freshman at the University of Illinois, I was passionate about aviation. After classes one day, I perused LinkedIn for names of individuals working on New York-area airports and stumble on Ray Moore, VP for New York & New Jersey Aviation. He worked at an infrastructure consulting firm Parsons Brinckerhoff. My heart-beating as I warmed an exquisite mac & cheese cup in my dorm microwave, I sent a quick personalized note describing my excitement to learn about airport projects in my home region. For a reason still unclear today, Ray accepts the invite and we have an hour-long conversation about his experiences. Fast forward to senior year - I undergo an intense six months of recruiting, starting from the prior summer, with no luck; so, I reach out to Ray again asking for advice. He ultimately connects me with the manager of a rotational management consulting program, Stephen Kuhr, who would go on to hire me a few weeks later.?

The position was a perfect fit, at the intersection of my goals, skills, and interests. Luck? To an extent, yes! But, that was one of probably 100 networking conversations. According to the law of large numbers, if you strategically cast a wide net, you can slowly find the right fit. And that’s what I hope this piece conveys.

Point 1: Reflect on what you might want from this new position

Simon Sineck’s Find Your Why describes the importance of understanding what motivates you. This concept might sound overly literary, but when you inevitably end up working long hours (suppose 1am on a Thursday evening), you will naturally wonder why you chose the career you did. Taking the time upfront to identify what you care about will make the rest of the process around networking more successful, for the long-term.

Questions to reflect on could include (with potential options):

• What industry do you want to enter (technology services, finance, consumer goods, energy, transport, creative / digital media, law, medicine…)? “Tech” is not the only industry that needs computer scientists. Transport could use many more
• What type of role fits your skills and interests (product, sales, customer service, research, engineering, marketing, etc.)?
• Target hours to pay ratio (are you ok with working 70+ hour weeks in the hopes of an improved W/L balance, or is capping at 50 hours important?)
• What type of impact do you want to make? (e.g. happier customers, improved revenue for shareholders, reduced carbon emissions… extreme examples but worth thinking through)
• What are your must-haves for company “culture” (welcoming questions from across seniority levels, regular happy hours, team diversity, high performance)?
• Other determining factors on the type of work, company, team, manager, industry are all worth listing on ahead of seeking out opportunities

My dad always said that "95% of people do not like their work, so you might as well find a way to set yourself up for a higher paying job." While there is merit to those economics, that approach can lead you to follow the herd toward “prestigious” positions when in college (e.g. management consulting, banking, tech), without really knowing what you want. Had I landed my interview with Boston Consulting Group (BCG), I would have likely set myself up for a successful trajectory, but probably would not have been happy. The position neither aligned with my passion for transport & infra, nor with my bent for technology & data, nor my hours to pay goals. That said, I pursued it since BCG was a target company for my most ambitious peers.

The key theme here is that you should invest time in researching the right areas. You’ll spend at least 2,000 hours (80 straight days) working annually, so that time upfront is well worth. Being able to speak to why you are targeting certain roles or industries with a sense of genuine interest, or have a coherent story, shines clearly during interviews.

Jim Collins’ “Good to Great” masterpiece says that the most successful companies are those at the nexus of finding they can be the best “in the world” at, highly profitable, and are focused on what employees are passionate about. That combination is indeed tough, but correlates well to careers - you’ll be happiest in a role at which you can excel, earn a competitive salary, and genuinely care about the work. Identifying the nexus requires an understanding of your passions, your skills, and the salaries for different types of jobs. But let’s be honest, we often do not really know the answers, or the universe of possibilities. So, the next step once you have a loose picture of your goals, is talking to people - a lot of them.?

Reading, listening to podcasts, and googling are all important parts of the research phase and can broaden your understanding of industries and ability to be conversant on topics. I would highly encourage those efforts. Additionally though, and arguably even more important, is connecting with the right people, who can often be the tipping point to success.

Point 2: Find people (the right ones)

Everyone knows that applying online is often a black box; you can land a great job that way, but what if you can develop a deeper understanding of the role and get a favorable opinion with an insider? That is exactly the purpose of an informational interview. And, your odds are much higher of landing the position, especially at the gig meeting your expectations. Even before you find that right role, how do you find helpful people?

Steve Dalton’s 2-Hour Job Search identifies three different types of people - some who are “promoters,” they will work hard to advocate for you; others who are “networked,” they maintain large networks that they can easily tap into to help you. Many others are “passives,” they do not actively help or hurt your chances of success, but are far less effective use of your time than the prior categories. Through Malcolm Gladwell’s lens in The Tipping Point, you would want to identify the Connectors, who enjoy using their network to broaden yours.

You can get a sense of which category that might fall in early on, based on the interest they show in you and eagerness to help. The majority of people will not be promoters, and that’s ok, but when you find them - know that they want to help and allocate substantially more effort. Use the 80/20 rule in these cases: allocate 80% of your effort on the 20% of individuals who are invested in your success. You should go into all calls with an open-mind, aware that 80% of folks will not be promoters. Most importantly, be reliable with communication and any action items they propose. See the next point for details on how to actually build the rapport with a stranger.

I can’t overstate the importance of a strong network. If you can tap into other people’s networks by making a good impression or seeming genuine, you can leap ahead in the process - with multiple companies. And, according to the network effect described in Dalton’s book, as you start asking having informational interviews, you should begin increasing the number of individuals who are advocating on your behalf for new opportunities.

Great, I am in - so how do I find these people? Any way you can! The obvious ones are starting by asking friends, family, and alumni affiliations. The first two are a bit unstructured with a high connect rate (hopefully). Depending on your alumni network, the last could be highly effective with a lower connect rate (note that connect rate is the ratio of number of attempts to a successful connection). The fourth bucket would be through random LinkedIn connection with someone who has a compelling background. Depending on the strength of your invitation note and background, these random connection requests could pan out, likely with a few follow-ups on your end.

LinkedIn’s network effects are impressive; you can look up your 2nd degree connections, who are just one introduction away from your first degree connection. A contingent of folks around you genuinely care about your success, and some of those people may not be obvious - you just have to start by asking around based on your interests. LinkedIn.com/alumni maintains detailed search capabilities for current positions of alum across ALL universities, which you can see even if that school is not your alma mater.

Other avenues if you have a refined area of interest would be to email / LinkedIn connect with people you see publishing interesting content (be it through magazines, company websites, LinkedIn, podcasts, clubhouse…). I did that extensively during college to learn about careers in transport. The next section jumps more into the mechanics of the conversation itself.

Point 3: you might not land 30 interviews, but can definitely have 30 informational interviews

I found a cool person! What now? Talk to them? Why would they want to talk to me?

In a digital age, we are losing a human connection with one another - especially through non text-based means. An effective conversation, be it over phone or in-person, can be a strong leading motivator for a hire, or a strong referral. So, when you find a promoter, or someone in your industry that replies back with particular interest, talk to them! Without calling it as such, set up an “informational interview” to learn more about what they do. Check out this article on how to write an effective cold connect request message (via LinkedIn or elsewhere).

As you start having these informational interviews, you will begin to understand what you like, people whose personalities match, how to get the best position for the right company, and get visibility into openings that are likely not posted anywhere. There is plenty of strategy on how to effectively initiate these conversations, questions to ask, and proper follow-ups, but your main goal should be to seek advice on how to land a job you love. Likely the person you are speaking with will not directly hire you, but their network can, especially with a strong recommendation. An awesome resource for this process is the 2-Hour Job Search by Steve Dalton.?

The flow of these informational calls can look like:

• 2-minute introduction about yourself
• 5-10 minutes on their background with questions to better understand transitions, roles, and projects
• 5-10 minutes with targeted questions based on your objective (e.g. learning about the industry, deepening the connection for a potential referral)
• 5 minutes to wrap with common follow-up questions (e.g. advice to be more attractive for employers, other contacts to connect with, resources to learn more, etc.)

An important part to these conversations is having the right mindset and attitude. In other words, if you are genuinely curious, enthusiastic, and excited about the space (based on Points 1 and 2 above), that will shine through. It helps to research their background to discern potential points of commonality or headlining accomplishments to dive in deeper, which will help to make a connection. If you are just talking to check a box, that will likely not lead to a great impression. That said, some of us are more introverted and detest these conversations; that is okay too! Start networking with a few folks who are less intimidating - perhaps friend of friend, family contact, or just another known person in an area of interest. Over time, you will become more comfortable with the process. Just make sure you have completed Points 1 and 2 first!

It is also good practice to send your (PDF) resume ahead of the call “just for reference on my background.” You aren’t saying hire me, or send this into an internal black box, but just demonstrating your qualifications and justifying why they should take interest. A resume provides more context than just a note and basic LinkedIn profile.

Make sure to get multiple points of feedback on your resume. You have total control here so make sure it looks professional (whatever that means for your industry), 100% free of grammar or spelling errors, and consistent in formatting. Everyone is different, but I say that if you don’t care enough about putting your personal resume together without errors, why should I take the risk of hiring you only to see that lack of attention to detail in the workplace?

At the end of the call, do not hesitate to ask them for other individuals to speak with (inside or outside their company). Doing so will further demonstrate your interest and create a cyclical flow of individuals to seek advice from.

Conveniently, early in the year is the perfect time to have such networking calls. After the holidays, work has not fully kicked up, university recruiting isn’t for a few months, and people tend to feel refreshed.

Point 4: Fully leverage your current environment

Whether you are in school, already in industry, or even unemployed, there are existing avenues to network.

In school, clubs and professors are a powerful source of connecting you to jobs. To recruit new candidates, I shared our posting informally with my professors and the Illinois Business Consulting program. Often people do just that - share information with their affiliates instead of through formal job portals. And, recruiters feel more comfortable hiring, or vouching for, people coming from a known community. Whether that be the best approach or not is a separate conversation.

At work, seek out “extra 10%” activities, those which are not part of your core role but give you exposure to more parts of the business. These opportunities are often flagged in town halls, newsletters, or tasks the operations directors have to take on. Ask your manager. Why do extra work? The conversations you have separate from your core day-to-day work can expose you to new areas and people that can lead to entirely new career trajectories. In consulting, extra 10% means more non-billable hours, but I landed my current Chief of Staff role at Maryland Transit purely because my manager at the time, our Operations Director, volunteered me to help put together a presentation for our business line. That’s where I met my current manager leading the transit automation practice. Had I kept my head down and chugged away on existing deliverables, I would likely not have stumbled into this exciting path in the transport tech space with an awesome team. PS if Extra 10% sounds familiar, I borrowed it from Bain recruiters; can’t help but love the phrase.

Even if you are unemployed, try the avenues listed in the previous point. You don’t know which connection (a neighbor, family friend, local postman?) will help tip your application!

Footnote: If you are familiar with machine learning (which is a subset of AI, just for the record), then using extra 10% opportunities to get ahead is not too different. In ML, you have a series of parameters that are iteratively adjusted as you provide more data to help it reach a desired outcome. There are two approaches to refining those parameters - exploration and exploitation. In exploitation, you exploit a known environment and only slowly uncover new people and experiences. This arena is more comfortable as there is little newness other than that what comes naturally, and therefore, less likelihood of error. In the exploration phase, you venture out to new domains, likely requiring more effort and with a higher failure rate. However, it is this very exploration that can lead to major success in terms of achieving the optimal parameters (exciting new opportunities and people). My favorite book on the broad universe of data science is Numsense! Data Science for the Layman: No Math Added, by Stanford alum Annalyn Ng and Kenneth Soo. All this to say, networking is purely exploration, which can be uncomfortable to start with, but ultimately pays off through a broadened perspective and direct access to those with the new opportunities.

Point 5: Become too comfortable with failure

Like other things in life, job hunting is a game of perseverance deploying the right strategy. The best way to find your way to success is to fail as much as you can early on; inevitably many early conversations will not go well and companies will point blank reject you (in some cases a year after you’ve had your new role). I have had conversations where I walk away feeling like a complete waste of time and energy - zero connection with the other individual, and did a poor job presenting myself. But that’s ok! It might be discouraging, but the important thing in this process is to be vulnerable and ask for help from multiple people. Remember that only a small subset of individuals are promoters, those who will push your resume forward and support you. Most people will be relatively ambivalent. Over time, you will become a more confident individual and refine your understanding of what you want to do; and more importantly, what type of people you would want to work with.

Conclusion

All the work will pay off in building a network that can extend beyond this job search period. Proactively reaching out and pitching yourself for advice will also make you stronger in your ultimate role. Success in companies is often tied to building new relationships and getting visibility, which is exactly what you learn through the process.

Ultimately, give back!! Find students to mentor, look for ways to hire alum, share your knowledge. When you are hiring, do so with as much vigor and interest in finding the right candidates as you did with job seeking.

With COVID, hopefully we have all become a bit more compassionate and grateful for the simple things like health, ability to go to work, and be safe.

So, good luck! Thanks for reading! Share feedback on what did or did not resonate here, versus content you have seen elsewhere (actually, please do). And, let me know how my network could help you!

Additional Resources (most relevant first):

• Why Networking Over Coffee Isn’t a Prerequisite for a Job in the Startup World, Ross Baird (Medium Post )
• 2 Hour Job Search, Steve Dalton
• Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team, Simon Sinek, David Mead, Peter Docker
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, Jim Collins
• The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell